Gernby

Insurance companies have TONS of math whiz's that spend all their energy figuring out how to bring in more money than they give out. They know what the crime rate is in your area, and they know how likely an S2000 is to be broken in to. Soon, they will know how likely you are to file a cliam, and they'll "fix" their calculations for you. You can make money in the short term off of insurance, but they'll make their money back excessively in the long run. You'll eventually find that you would have been better off financially to just find a way to protect your car better.

BTW, your claim record follows you around from insurance company to insurance company like a credit report.

altiain

[QUOTE=gernby,Jan 21 2010, 09:43 AM] I'm really surprised to read altiain's suggestion to lower the deductible, since I thought he was at least decent at math!

Insurance in general is a necessary evil, and should only be purchased for things that you would not be able to cover on your own.

Clovis

Alan - Sent you a PM. Give me a call and I can walk you through some options.

NM, your inbox is full. Send me a PM with your number.

txchopper5

This is the case for most people, but you can't say that there aren't a few exceptions to this. Homeowners insurance is the same way, but you go as everyone that lost their house in Katrina if saving that extra money every month on flood insurance was worth it.

I'm not saying that it doesn't usually cost more to have the insurance and a low deductible, but I am saying that an extra 10-15 a month is worth not having to worry about coming up with a grand or more every time someone decides they want my rear view mirror and cuts my top for it, or hits me in a parking lot and doesn't want to leave their insurance info. Plus, despite all of my claims (that happened in the first 6 months of owning the car) my rates have only gone up about $5 a month over the last year.

Gernby

As I said, if you can't afford the random "shock" on the budget, then you need more coverage. I can't afford to replace my home, so I have full coverage on it with a standard deductible equal to 1% of the value of the home. I can't afford to replace my car if it's stolen or crashed, so I have full coverage on it. However, I can easily afford a $1K deductible on my car, so it would be wasteful for me to have a lower deductible than that.

On a more phylosophical note, if your budget is so tight that a $1,000 incident causes significant budgetary problems, then you may be living beyond your means. I'm not pointing any fingers, though, since I've done the same over the years.

Funny you mention the health insurance and cancer treatments. My wife is being treated right now for breast cancer, and I've already had to pay $10K in deductible for the end of '09, and am quickly racking up the $10K for '10. That sounds like a lot, but if I would have bought the "low deductible" health insurance plan, I would probably be paying twice as much due to the 20% coinsurance that accompanies the low deductible plans. I would have also had to pay about $6K extra in premiums each year for the low deductible plan.

LMB2000

To Alan - sorry to hear about the break in... So much chickenshittery going on...

Theres a reason I drive my daily 90% of the time... It seems when I have the S2K out, I am usually in a place I can routinely check on its well being.

PsykotiK

Ya i cant stand to leave mu car where it will be out of reach for a long time

Gernby

The ONLY people that should consider not having home owner's insurance are those that are so wealthy that replacing ONE OF THEIR HOMES would not be an overwhelming financial hit.

alan_s2ki

yeah so insurance will not cover radar....only reason my deductible is soo high was because viewpoint bank which is my lender required me to have it to approve the loan.

clovis - im at work right now you can email me your number alantruonggg@gmail.com and i'll call u later on the day.

Gernby

You probably misunderstood the requirement from your lender. Banks require your deductible to be equal to or lower than some amount. In your case, your maximum allowed deductible was $1000. If you need a lower deductible, the bank would be all for it!